Wikibooks:Userboxes

This page gives information about the design, construction, and usage of userboxes, which are only intended to be used on userpages. Wikibooks is first and foremost an online reference, and its online community is a means to that end. Userboxes are tools which are intended for communication purposes, such as helping Wikibookians collaborate more effectively on books.

Userboxes (commonly abbreviated as UBX) are small colored boxes that allow users to add small messages on their user pages. They generally include one or two small graphics and a few short lines of text. Often they also include wiki markup that places the user in a category. Userboxes are generally created as templates and transcluded onto userpages, although their markup may be substituted directly onto user pages instead. Userboxes should not be used in articles.

The primary purpose of userboxes and user categories should be to alert other Wikibookians to ways you might aid them in editing. For instance, if you speak a second language or have professional expertise in a technical field, other users will know they can contact you for assistance.

Acceptable uses for boxes include user interests, user skills, technical information, or Wikibooks activities. Do not create or use boxes that do not add to the Wikibooks community. Userboxes should themselves be filed in a category, but they should not always file those that use them in a category. Keep in mind the existing categories when determining whether a userbox should do so or not.

Any userbox, especially those of a more personal nature, should be created as a sub-page of your user page rather than placing it in the Template: namespace.

Userbox names in the Template: namespace must begin with "User " (for example, Template:User nameofbox). Those in Template: namespace may be expected to adhere more tightly with the acceptable uses illustrated above compared to ones that are subpages to your user page, which is given more leeway than content in other namespaces.

The Wikimedia Commons has a large range of icons for use within boxes. However, if you wish to select a different image to put in a userbox, make certain the image license is free. WikiBooks policy does not allow templates (which includes userboxes) or user pages to contain any copyrighted content not under free license; so, for example, "fair use" images are explicitly forbidden. This clause is to be interpreted strictly and without exception, for legal reasons.

Userboxes that include Category markup which adds the bearing userpage to a category must only categorize within subcategories of Category:Wikibookians.

Names and descriptions of subcategories are subject to the same rules and restrictions as userbox content.

Userboxes should not automatically include categories by default. Consider how useful the category would be to other editors before adding it to your userbox.

Do not create categories which could potentially include all Wikibookians. For example, userboxes such as: "This user is a Wikibookian."; "This user is human."; "This user uses the internet"; etc., should not include category markup based on such criteria.

Avoid categorizing "not"-based userboxes. For example: "This user does not like <noun phrase>."

There are a number of box types to select from when deciding to make a userbox. The most commonly used design is the "Standard box". It has one square shaped area on the left ("id") and a rectangular area on the right ("info").

For ease of use, userboxes are made using maker-templates that have a number of parameters. Once the maker-template is saved, it is automatically transformed to HTML.